28 Oct 2024
Employment Rights Bill
Peterborough office
48 Broadway, Peterborough Cambridgeshire, PE1 1YW
01733 346 333 01733 562 338 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukStamford office
10 Ironmonger Street, Stamford Lincolnshire, PE9 1PL
01780 752 066 01780 762 774 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukOakham office
66 South Street, Oakham Rutland, LE15 6BQ
01572 757 565 01572 720 555 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukMarket Deeping office
27a Market Place, Market Deeping, PE6 8EA
01778 230 120 01778 230 129 enquiries@hegarty.co.uk28 Oct 2024
On the 10th of October 2024, the Government unveiled details of employment law reforms by submitting the Employment Rights Bill to Parliament – Employment Rights Bill.
The Bill will bring forward 28 individual employment law reforms, the key ones being as follows:
1 - Employees will be protected from ‘ordinary’ unfair dismissal from day one, meaning the current two-year qualifying period will be removed. The Government has indicated that there will be an ‘initial period of employment’ (IPE) where a ‘lighter-touch process’ would apply. Specific details are to be confirmed by regulations, but the Government has expressed that their preference is for the length of the IPE to be 9 months.
2 - Day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave.
3 - Employees will have the right statutory sick pay (SSP) from the first day of illness, rather than having to wait three qualifying days in any period of entitlement. Furthermore, the lower earnings limit will be removed, meaning all employees will be eligible for SSP. However, the Bill does allow for lower earners to be paid less than the statutory rate of SSP.
4 - An end to exploitative zero hours contracts/low hours contracts. Employers will be required to offer zero hour workers with a guaranteed hours offer at the end of every reference period. Secondary legislation will deal with the specific conditions that will need to be met in order to qualify for the right. Employers will also be required to provide workers with reasonable notice of a shift and workers will be entitled to receive compensation if shifts are changed or cancelled less than a specified amount of time before the shift is due to start. Again, secondary legislation will set out the amount of notice that is considered reasonable.
5 - Restrictions on fire and rehire practices. The current low threshold of ‘a sound business reason’, will be replaced with a higher threshold as employers will need to show that the reason for the variation was to eliminate, prevent or significantly reduce, or significantly mitigate the effect of any financial difficulties, which at the time of the dismissal were affecting or were likely in the immediate future to affect the employer’s ability to carry on the business as a growing concern or otherwise carry on the activities constituting the business, and in all the circumstances the employer could not reasonably have avoided the need to make the variation.
6 - Flexible working to be made the default, where practical. Employers will need to afford flexible working to an employee, unless the employer considered that the applications should be refused on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (1ZA), and it is reasonable for the employer to refuse the application.
The grounds listed in 1ZA are:
When refusing an application an employer must detail the ground(s) for refusal and explain why they consider it is reasonable to refuse the application.
7 - Impose a duty on employers to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment and harassment by third parties.
8 - Reporting sexual harassment will become a protected disclosure.
9 - Women will be afforded with greater protections when pregnant, on maternity leave and for the first six months of returning to work.
All reforms will be subject to consultation, with most changes unlikely to take effect until 2026.
Four consultations have already been launched. The Government is presently seeking views on the application of measures to tackle one-sided flexibility in zero hours contracts to agency worker, trade union legislation, statutory sick pay, collective redundancy and fire and rehire. All four consultations will close on the 2nd of December 2024.
Whilst many of the changes are unlikely to take effect until 2026 and the specific detail is not yet known, it is crucial that employers familiarise themselves with the upcoming changes now.